Wow.
Dad was getting remarried and I hadn’t even known he was dating.
My stomach sank. How much had he been hiding from us? How long for?
I loved my dad, and I knew he loved me, and this didn’t change any of that. He was still the same man who’d taught me to tie my shoelaces and sat and struggled through my homework with me and showed me how to shave without cutting myself.
Nothing could ever take that away from either of us. Not everyone got to have a dad at all, I was lucky to have this one.
“What’s his name?”
“Trent,” Dad licked his lips. “He’s… he’s nice. I think you’d like him.”
“If you like him, I like him,” I promised. My own father was coming out to me, I wasn’t going to be anything short of supportive about it.
“I could go for having two dads,” I added.
My current, single dad smiled down into his water. “He’s dying to meet you. And Hallie.”
“Anytime,” I said. “You tell me the place, I’ll be there.”
“Thanks,” Dad said. “Means a lot to your old man to hear you say that.”
A waitress interrupted us, and I let Dad order for me as well, since he’d had time to study the menu and I’d ended up a little later than I intended.
For the few moments the conversation stopped, my mind wandered back to Aiden, and what he was doing. Sitting alone in the cabin, maybe listening to his book again, eating by himself.
A pang of guilt hit me. I didn’t like to think of him lonely, even if I knew logically he must’ve spent most nights exactly like that. He wasn’t normally so far away from home.
Except he had been, dozens of times, and he’d clearly survived it just fine.
Maybe it was time to accept that I missed him, and I was hoping he missed me.
“I’d offer you a penny for your thoughts,” Dad said. “But I’m not sure I have enough change in my pocket for all of them.”
I licked my lips, taking a sip of water, another wave of guilt washing over me. I wassupposedto be here supporting my dad. Talking to him, at least.
We didn’t get to see each other nearly as much these days, and I realized now it was probably because he’d been hiding this huge part of his life.
“Hey, Dad?” I said, sweeping my finger nervously over the rim of my glass. “I love you. Always. No matter what.”
Dad’s whole face lit up. “Haven’t heard that in a while.”
More than a decade, probably.
We were all a mess. Me, Dad, Hallie, even Mom, though my sympathy for her particular kind of mess was at a low point.
“Is he good to you?” I asked, wanting to hear desperately that one of us got out, thatoneof us was happy.
“Trent?” Dad asked, his eyes lighting up. “He’s incredible. He… he says, umm. That it doesn’t matter that we met so late because he would’ve waited a lifetime for me, anyway.”
I didn’t think I’deverseen my dad blush before, but he was blushing now, like a shy teenager.
Yeah, Trent was good to him. Which he completely deserved.
“Think he likes you,” I teased, pouring us each another glass of water. We were both driving back over snow and ice, in the dark, in a foreign country, so even a single glass of wine seemed a little dangerous.
“I really hope so, or I’ll look pretty stupid when I ask him to marry me,” Dad said. “But if I was twenty years younger, you’d have some serious competition for Aiden,” he added, just in time for me to choke on a mouthful of water.
